Formats
How to Choose a Frame and Mat
Mat width does more than molding does. The defaults that work, the colors to avoid, and when a plain cheap frame beats an expensive one.
Latest
Comparisons
Baroque vs Rococo
Baroque persuades you; Rococo entertains you. The dates, the palettes, the patrons and the six-second test for telling the two apart.
Famous Paintings
Winslow Homer’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Schoolyards, shipwrecks and the open Atlantic: ten paintings by the self-taught New Englander who became America’s greatest realist.
Famous Paintings
Albert Bierstadt’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Thunderheads over the Rockies, golden light in Yosemite, and buffalo on the plains: the ten paintings that sold America its own West.
Style & Color
Mid-Century Modern Wall Art: A Guide
What actually counts as mid-century modern art, the six colors the style runs on, and how to frame and hang it without tipping into pastiche.
Movements
What Came After Impressionism?
Four painters took four different exits from Impressionism — and between them produced most of twentieth-century art.
Famous Paintings
Thomas Moran’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and the cliffs of the Green River: the ten works that made Moran the painter of the American West.
Famous Paintings
Joaquín Sorolla’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Wet sand, white dresses, and the Mediterranean at midday: the ten paintings that made Sorolla the master of Spanish light.
Style & Color
Maximalist Walls: Color, Pattern and Density
Density only works when something governs it. The coverage figures, the repeated-color rule and the frame discipline that separate a maximalist wall from a cluttered one.
Movements
Art Nouveau Explained
The whiplash curve, the poster, and the twenty years around 1900 when Europe tried to redesign everything at once.
Famous Paintings
James Tissot’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Parisian society, London river parties, and a late life spent illustrating the Bible: the ten works that define James Tissot.
Famous Paintings
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Cool porcelain skin, impossible curves, and the finest line in French painting: the ten works that define Ingres.